I am from East Africa and new to this forum.
The current turn of events in Nigeria have led me to realize that countries in Africa and developing economies have serious problem with their police structures. The countries with worst police forces in Africa are Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and of course Nigeria. Other countries outside Africa include Haiti, Thailand and Ukraine. All the listed countries have nationalized police forces meaning that the police in those are controlled by the national government or simply by the state. Developed countries tend to have less centralized police forces which are limited to municipalities and counties. This means police officers in develop countries are more in touch with the communities which they are serving. However, African countries have police officers who work for the state and show little interest to the community. This goes way back to the colonial era when the British set up home guards, riflemen and mercenaries to combat resistance to their rule. The British archived this by pitching one group against the other. Second, they did through delocalization. For instance, in East Africa a police officer from Kenya could posted the farthest corner of Uganda. After independence African government moved along with the trend since it was easier to govern the state through force. In fact, a police will rarely serve more than five years in a given location, they are always being transferred.
For me, true police reforms in Africa will only come through decentralization where communities are involved with their security policy as opposed to state controlled police forces.